Persona 3: The Gekkoukan Incident
by heat3000
Summary: 10 years before the events of P3, the Dark Hour was born and Shadows were set free, all in the name of vain science. Could there have been an ulterior motive? Or was it all just an experiment gone horribly wrong? The fourth fic in the RES Saga.
1. March 31, 2037

DISCLAIMER/AUTHOR'S NOTE: I do not own Shin Megami Tensei, SMT, Persona 3, the Persona brand, or any characters within this fanfiction. They all belong to Atlus Co, Ltd., Atlus USA, and all subsidiary companies thereof. The legal stuff aside, that will be the only disclaimer for this part of the RES Saga. Before reading this, you should know that this fanfiction takes place in 1999, ten years before the events of Persona 3, and follows the events surrounding the "Gekkoukan Incident". Considering the main characters from P3 would have been in elementary school at the time, this fanfic will not feature them in any significant light. Rather, this fic will explore the incident as it happened. This fic will be told in the first person, however, the narrator will have been a character you should be familiar with from P3, so I hope you don't mind. Note that this fic is also within the RES Saga and will sometimes jump into the future for story's sake. Also, to forgo any future questions, I will still be working on ParaPol while simultaneously writing TGI. Now then, onward with...

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI

T H E

G E K K O U K A N

I N C I D E N T

MARCH 31, 2037

"_Alert, Alert_ was all I kept hearing. As I ran down through the halls of what used to be lab 14-A, chasing that crazy son of a bitch who started all of this, I began to wonder...What if this wasn't a mistake, an accident, even an attempt at foolish theft or murder. What if he really thought he was _helping_ the world by doing this? What a foolish thought that was! Back then, I didn't know...how I wish I'd known...

"He was an employee of mine for three years prior to the incident. A hard worker, he had a wife and a child, both of them absolutely beautiful. You were the one he always talked about, you see, so I never factored that into my equations when I made my hiring decisions. In hindsight, I'd say he did what he did for your sake. Whether or not he understood he was releasing hell upon the world is another question whatsoever, but when I was chasing him through those halls that eerily cold November night, I swear to God I could hear him laughing...laughing, crying, and downright muttering all at the same time. It was _pathetic_."

"Why did you let him get away?" she asked me, looking me straight in the eye, tears forming in her hazel eyes, wondering what I'd done all those years ago...

"I didn't _let_ him get away," I told her. "Your son of a bitch father went into the record room, locked himself in, and set the place on fire."

"If that were true, he wouldn't have revived...he didn't die in this world, I know that."

"That's true, to a degree...I guess," I said, bringing a cigar to my face and lighting it with my matchbook. I offered the girl some, but, she wouldn't take any of it.

"I don't smoke," she said.

"Your loss. Either way. I chased your father down to the bottom floor, where our archives were held. You have to remember, we didn't have a network or any of the fancy crap you kids have today, this was 1999 mind you. Anyway, I chased you father down to the basement level before he locked himself in the record room, and then, he torched the place. How do I know? I could see the flames through the door, the handle was hot to the touch, too. If I went inside, all I would have found was his charred corpse."

"And what time was this?"

"Nowhere close to midnight. So you see the challenge this poses, yeah? Your father killed himself hours before midnight, and yet he was still able to set the events of the past few weeks in motion..."

"How do you think that was possible?"

"Oh, how the hell should I know? All I know is that the things you kids have been up to for the past thirty-eight years have been very disturbing, and almost completely to the contrary of what everything else in this Universe has tried to accomplish. Your damn well lucky you had me on your side."

"And what if we didn't..."

"You'd be dead...this world would have merged with all the rest, and your father's death would have meant nothing..."

"Do you think he was a martyr?"

"Martyr, Saint, whatever you want to call him, you can call him that. I'll always remember him as the bastard who let loose that hell upon Iwatodai all those years ago."

"So why are you telling me this, after all these years? In fact, why even tell _me_? Why not your own grand-daughter, or your son, or..."

"Because _you_ are the one that happened to survive, my dear...you see all these gravestones around us...souls of the damned. And out of all this death there is but one ray of light that my old eyes can see...and that is your past...or rather, your future...this world was never meant to carry on, only absolve us of our sins temporarily until a better solution came along. Even then, humans were an accidental creation created by Gods and demons unknown to our universe...hell, if you want me to depress you even further, our own universe is a split dimension built off of the Otherworld...a shared destiny of destruction and cruelty that only through your actions you have managed to cease..."

"So what was the purpose of all this...this experiment? To liberate us? To control us? Or rather...to release the bonds of fate..."

"None of the above," I replied. I saw the surprised expression on her face and offered her another cigarette. She declined and I scanned my eyes across the graveyard we were standing in. Names I recognized and names I didn't, but all the same linked through one thing and one thing only: the power of the Persona. The girl – or rather, woman I was talking to, had been kneeling next to two particular headstones by the time I had arrived. She had been weeping alone. Six kids, barely out of high school, had been standing near her, looking down sympathetically at the time, and all the while I couldn't help but feel glad that I didn't have to face my own grand-daughter in the flesh...

"So what was the purpose of the project, then? Time travel? Prevention of the creation of our universe?"

"Time travel per se cannot describe the exact hopes and dreams for this experiment. All I can say is that regardless of the turmoils you have been through in the past four decades, the overall project was a success...By pursuing your true selves back through the Gates of Hell, you have done the impossible...you can start anew..."

"What do you mean?"

"In about a week, this world will crumble, and it will all fall back into place as it should have been if the experiment had succeeded, thirty-eight years ago..."

"Seven days from now...April Seventh?"

"That's right...the anniversary of when your story began, and when the final steps of this grand scheme were set in motion..."

"Final steps...what _exactly_ was the purpose of the experiment, then...you have seven days to tell me, and I expect them in full detail..."

"The purpose of the experiment? Well, I suppose I'd better start at the beginning then, back when this all first started...before the experiment even began and before your father unleashed the Shadows upon the world..."

"I want to know everything," she said to me, her eyes watery and barely able to hold my gaze. "The truth to this whole damn fiasco."

"A chaser of the truth? Well, then, I shall divulge all that I have within my knowledge of the incident and what our intentions were...It all began on New Year's Day, 1999..."


	2. September 4, 1999

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI

T H E

G E K K O U K A N

I N C I D E N T

SEPTEMBER 4, 1999

"Uh-huh...that's correct...send out the last of the teams on Tuesday...okay...tell them to send the samples to the lab in Yakushima first before sending them here...okay...okay, I'll talk to you later, bye."

I put the phone back onto the receiver and looked down at my desk...damn, two years into the project and already we were hitting major roadblocks. Package delays, clerical errors, misplaced wire transfers... all of it could be handled but the thing was I didn't _want_ to handle it. My son was doing the best he could down in Yakushima, but, knowing Takeharu, that isn't saying much. Ever since Mitsuru was born he's been paying less and less attention to his work as the project went forward. Not that I'm the sort of man who would want to strip a man away from his family, but...I just can't justify it in my mind. I can't understand why he can't grip the awesome power of our work here in Iwatodai.

The door opened and in hallway stood one of my most prestigious scientists, two actually, if you counted her apprentice. She came to me twelve years ago with the knowledge of Shadows...I haven't forgot her since. Three years later I recruited her and in the nine years since I brought her into the fold of the Kirijo Group I still do not know her real name.

"Ah, Bibi-san!? I trust you bring good news?" I asked her. Her apprentice was a short, scruffy little man whom I had recruited some three years ago. The induction interview was the only time I'd ever spoken to him in the last three years. A business relationship was all it was, with Bibi-san being out intermediary.

"Indeed I do, Junichi-san. Preliminary results from the Shadow containment system are in from Yakushima. They are all satisfactory. Not even the strongest of Shadows can escape our containment facility without manual override."

She told me the news in the same way she'd always been giving me reports for the past nine years: cordial, smooth, and expressionless during the actual report, then afterwards she would give me a small smile and a nod. At first, during our first months working together, I had thought that this was flirtatious trickery...I soon found out she was a decisive, no-nonsense individual whom I would come to love anyway.

But, shaking these thoughts aside, I nodded to her to indicate my satisfaction with the way the project was advancing so far, because, after nine years of work, the Gekkoukan Project was finally given a completion date: September 31, 1999. It was a date clearly marked on my desk calendar and, no doubt, Bibi-san's calendar as well...

There was a reason for my obsession.

Twelve years ago, the Kirijo Group was nonexistent. As the Iwatodai Director of the Nanjou Group, I was heading to Tokyo for a conference on production efficiency and cost reduction. As fate (or The Fates, as Bibi-san would later tell me) would have it, I passed by a group of students in another conference hall apparently studying philosophy and psychology, because when I passed by, I heard only a few words: _"The Shadow is the true self, bounded not by this Earth but a wholly different realm."_ The speaker had been Bibi-san and, as I passed by her conference hall, our eyes had a chance meeting before quickly drawing apart, but the damage, or should I say, the bond had already been made.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been so curious, peeking my head inside or listening in on their conversation, but then, who would be here today to recount these events?

It would turn out that she would wait a whole five hours for my conference to end, sitting outside the convention center with a cigarette in her hand and a small book in the other. I never got to see the book, she stuffed it in her pocket as soon as I approached, as if anticipating me. Then, without warning, as I was descending the steps of the convention center, she extended her hand towards mine, introduced herself as "B. B." (her initials, she had told me, hence Bibi-san) and told me I was destined to change the world should I seize the opportunity. Being the young, thirty-something executive-with-a-family I was, I quickly grabbed onto her notions of my greatness and instantly followed her to a small side street where she told me a few short, yet essentially fundamental facts about our universe.

Firstly, our universe is not our home.

Second, other universes exist.

Third, and most terrifying to me, other beings existed within those universes.

Finally, if there was a way to seal our universe within itself and shut ourselves off, we would be "free".

Free from what, exactly? I asked the question to her, looking her dead in the eyes as she held my arm.

The answer was not as clear as I had imagined, in fact, it didn't make any sense whatsoever when I first heard it. The answer to my question was just as confusing to me as these four "truths" she had just divulged to me:

The Cycle of the Arcanum.

Now, I know what you're thinking and I most certainly know that if you were in my position you would have no clue what that meant at the time, but I also know that if you were in my position that you would be equally entranced by such a bizarre concept. This woman, with all her tanned skin and white hair and unholy eyes was about to open Pandora's Box...literally.

I stared into her face for a few moments after that. Dazed and confused, I refused to wrap my head around the idea. I refused to believe that she was real. And in that instant my brain refused to recognize the facts that now hold this universe so tightly within their iron grip, she had vanished from my eyes.

I don't know whether or not the Bibi-san that day was an apparition or not, but three years later I met her again, this time when I fully understood what she was talking about, but that's a story for another time, ne?

Coming back to reality, Bibi-san was still standing in front of my desk, staring intently into my face. I noticed out of the corners of my eyes that another one of her apprentices had shown up. She had three of them, all equally skilled in various areas of Shadow-related research. There was Eiichiro Takeba, the scrawny guy who, with his devotion to his family, reminded me of my own son, Takeharu. Kujo Edogawa, a bookworm with a penchant for old artifacts...and finally, there was the man that had just walked into the room.

Shuji Ikutsuki was a pain in the ass sometimes - scratch that, most of the time...no, _all_ of the time. For some reason I always saw him hanging around the library, doing nothing in the research facility but _reading_. I would have fired him long ago if Bibi-san had not gone out of her way to testify in his defense, because apparently, seeing the hidden supernatural meaning in ancient poems and texts was his specialty, so I left it at that.

"Oh, Majestic One, how do I grace your presence today!?"

That was Ikutsuki.

"Knock it off with my name or I'll have you-"

I found myself standing up from my desk and raising my voice before Bibi-san raised her hand in front of me and walked over to whisper something in his ear. I couldn't make it out, even while trying. In fact, it's doubtful that Bibi-san ever said anything to Ikutskui, but one thing was for sure...

He sure was doing a _hell_ of a job pissing me off.

"What do you want, Ikutsuki? Make it quick!" I tried to bellow out with as intimidating a voice as I could muster...it came out as a sigh.

His face quickly stiffened and I saw the slightest twinkle in his eye. That meant he either had great news for me or he was about to massacre everyone in the room. I steadied my hand on the security button below my desk.

"I've located an energy source capable of containing the immense pressure of spiritual energy within the Shadows..."

"Tell me."

"I call it...SET, or Suppression-Evosion Technology,"

He was smiling...I didn't like that, not one bit...

"It works by-"

"I don't care _how_ it works, do you really think this can compress the Shadows' spirit energy long enough for us to fuse them?"

A sly grin appeared on his face, replacing the innocent smile of achievement he had held before.

"Why, yes...yes of course..."


	3. July 9, 1990

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI:

T H E

G E K K O U K A N

I N C I D E N T

JULY 9, 1990

_When in the course of human events it becomes apparent that the real is unreal and the unreal is suddenly our preferred reality, it is up to the mind to discern the truth from the lies. Those incapable of doing so are controlled by the nascent energies which they seek to dispel, but those which can break through the barrier are suddenly able to control the bonds that have kept them enslaved for so long._

_Ages ago, many eons before our Creations, there was a God. If one wishes to know the truth, we must acknowledge that God did exist, but he is not the god that humans worship today, albeit, the underlying memories of His presence are those which have created religion._

_He was a God chained down to this universe just as much as you or I, and the fact that he died trying to seal that which may destroy us all shows us of his devotion..._

_Or his cursed Fate._

_Yes, Fate...it is in your hands Junichi Kirijo...your hands that shall set the events in motion to end this Unholy tide of darkness and stop The Fall before it begins..._

_I pray that, unlike your god, you may live in fighting this tide of evil which is about to devour our existence..._

What in the...what? What the hell is this?

The letter that had appeared on my desk was not marked. It had no envelope. Rather, as I picked the stray piece of paper off the desk, the words began to reveal themselves before my very eyes. White became black, and the ink began to flow from nothing to transcribe itself into a message meant for my eyes only.

Well, that part I would learn from hindsight, eventually. As for the present, I was so wrapped up by the seeming impossibility of this magical paper that I completely ignored the lawyer sitting in front of me, studying my paranoid and (no doubt) psychotic glare with the grin of a murderer about to slaughter his victim.

He was a representative of the Nanjou Group whose duty was to prevent me from declaring independence at all costs. One slight mishap and my dreams of a _Kirijo_ Group would go up in flames and down to Hell.

"Mr...Kuzunoha, is it? Tell me why you've come here again?" I asked, trying to sound composed in the midst of this demonic paper.

The lawyer looked at me, quite pissed off. I'd obviously gotten his name wrong.

"The name is Arisato. Kurama Arisato. Now, Mr. Kirijo, I think we both know the reason I've been sent here...you see, your divisions, specifically Iwatodai Metalworks and Kirijo Energy, represent a significant portion of the annual revenue for the Nanjou Group. When you announced to the board your intent as a majority stockholder to form a new limited liability corporation with this components under Japanese economic law...well, let's just say it caused quite a stir down in headquarters."

"Unless you're here to offer me a better deal than my right as a-"

"And that's where you have it wrong, Mr. Kirijo," he said to me, looking me in the eye and I swear to the Almighty himself that he was toying with me. He continued after a slight pause. "You see, Japan is a member of the World Trade Organization, and under the articles of our accession agreement, the laws with which you have based your declaration are null and void. I'm here to inform you that what you are doing is _illegal_."

"Mr. Arisato..." I looked at this man sternly. He was young, but he was cocky. I don't even think he was thirty years old, but then again, with the skin and hair that he had, he could pull off posing as a high school student.

"I think you and I both know that with my sixty percent share in both those divisions, I can do whatever I damn well please, and that includes declaring independence from the Nanjou Group."

"Even if what you're doing was legal, the Board of Directors would still have to approve-"

"No, they would not."

"Excuse me?"

"It would be a lengthy process, but the prefectural and central government can intervene in the market as they so choose pending the economy situation, and we _both_ know that the Nanjou Group hardly plays fair in the market..."

"What are you implying?" he asked. He was genuinely interested now, but that damned cocky smile of his still didn't disappear.

"What I am implying is that whether the board likes it or not, I will control the _Kirijo_ Group. If they approve, then we sever all ties and our two companies compete in an open market. If not, then I will have the central government disband the Nanjou Group under anti-trust legislation and, as a majority shareholder, be appointed interim director, which I can then do whatever I damn well please."

"You know as well as I do that Labor Secretary Tanaka would never allow the Nanjou Group to fall through the cracks in the system...don't try to be _cute_ here, _Mister_ Kirijo, but it is in your best interests if you simply resigned your post and accepted your pension instead of following all this nonsense!"

"I'm not trying to be anything, it just so happens that the Nanjou Group, which at this point includes you as well, Mr. Arisato, is standing in my way of a better world and a better Japan."

"Look-"

I could see he was losing his temper. He had come into my office to discuss a proposal for me to lay down my arms and resign from the Nanjou Group, but apparently my stubbornness from frustrating him even more than his presence was frustrating me. I kept reminding myself that if I just stayed the course, everything would end up fine. Everything would end up fine...

He opened his jacket and revealed to me what looked like a gun...

Remember that part about everything being fine? Now's the time that I started to really..._doubt_ that philosophy.

"If you don't capitulate by legal means, then-"

"What the hell are you doing!?" I asked him, barely able to control my voice. At least I still sounded like I was composed, even if I wasn't in the most stable mindset right now. The gun in his jacket was looking at me. I swear to the Gods that the bloody thing was alive...

"Mr. Kirijo, the Board of Directors _really_ insists that you leave this matter alone and take your leave from the Nanjou Group immediately...after all, it would be a shame if your granddaughter were to get hurt over this..."

"You leave her out of this!" I yelled, standing up so fast I tipped my chair over and ruffled the papers on my desk.

"Mr. Kirijo, I cannot simply let you do this, it is-"

He stopped talking, and for a single moment in time I believed he was pausing for dramatic effect.

_What a pompous, arrogant bastard,_ I thought. At least I thought that until I saw the blood dripping from his mouth and his limp body falling back into the chair, a deeply tanned and white-haired woman stood behind Mr. Arisato. In her hand was a single object: not a gun or a knife, but a small transparent cube.

"You're-"

She interrupted me just as I began my sentence, raising the hand with the cube up to stop me from talking and placing the other on her hip.

"B.B. Looks like we meet again, Junichi-san."

"H-how do you know my name?"

"Oh, I know all there _is_ to know about you Junichi Kirijo. Who the hell do you think sent that letter to you?"

I looked down at the semi-blank sheet on paper sitting on my desk; the words weren't there anymore, but something tells me that it had less to do with lighting or the angle of the page than the arrival of this woman.

"Why...why did you kill this man?" I asked her, my voice slightly trembling. I was starting to get over myself now, but, it's not so easy when someone threatens to murder you and your family – even if the threat was indirect.

"Junichi Kirijo, did you not read the letter I sent to you? Only _you_ can set the events in motion to liberate this universe and set our souls free. There's no way I would let the Vice of Greed overcome the Power of Free Will..."

"What? W-why me!?" I asked pleadingly. Bibi-san did not look amused.

"Why? Because you're the only one with the resources of this world to do anything! You're the only one who can set up the necessary trials and tribulations that the future saviors of our race shall encounter! You-"

"Okay! Okay! I get the picture...but...first things first...what the hell are we supposed to do with this dead guy!?" I shouted, pointing down at the corpse of Kurama Arisato. No doubt the Nanjou Group would have be murdered if they found out their lawyer (or hit man) was dead. The fact that they had Japan's Secretary of Police Forces under their control wasn't too good either.

"Don't worry, I sense in this man the same energies that reside in you...his death will contribute to the liberation of this universe!"

"Lady, you're really scaring me right now."

"Have I not scared you from the very beginning, Junichi Kirijo? Ever since that day three years ago, I have noticed many troubles in your heart, but now I can lead you to the path that will help you and all mankind find Salvation!"

"_Great_. That's absolutely wonderful, but you still haven't answered my question...in fact, I don't even think one question is enough to explain what in the _hell_ you are doing here! How did you kill this guy!? Who are you? _What_ are you?"

"In time, my friend, in time. But all I shall give you in terms of advice right now is that the Kirijo Group must succeed...that is our only chance for Salvation!"

"What in the-"

"Trafuri!" she shouted, and, for a second, I thought she was insane. When a blinding light overcame my office and the only particle that remained of her was a single note dangling in the air, I thought to myself, _maybe she's not the crazy one after all_.

But then again, if we hadn't met again that day and if Kurama Arisato hadn't died, maybe I wouldn't be talking to you today...


	4. August 7, 1990

AUTHORS NOTE: For practical purposes, I will switch to the third-person for segments of the story involving the characters in this chapter.

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI

T H E

G E K K O U K A N

I N C I D E N T

AUGUST 7, 1990

"We are gathered here today to celebrate a great life...the life of a man who not only lived his life with honor and virtue, but with humility and grace. He has served his country. He has seen what many of us have never seen. In his words and actions, as in his hopes and dreams, he aspired for a better future for us all..."

Kurama Arisato, unlike the rest of his family, was a Christian. The preacher in the front of the chapel, celebrating Kurama's life, diverged so much from traditional Buddhist funeral tradition that it was almost enough to make Ryouichi Arisato sick. Sitting there with his wife, the two of them were the only ones attending Kurama's funeral.

It was no surprise to anyone in the Arisato House that Kurama would get himself killed one day. In high school he had gotten into fights with everyone he could get his hands on – even the girls. After graduating, he joined the JSDF so he could go to war, only to learn that Japan's constitution forbade armed conflicts with other nations. After he was discharged (dishonorably) from the JSDF, he went underground in Hokkaido, only keeping occasional correspondence with the brother with whom he had only come to trust as a loyal business partner.

Now he was lying in a casket in the middle of a deserted Christian temple in the middle of Tokyo. It was Ryouichi who had insisted on giving him a proper burial – their parents could honestly care less about their gangster of a son.

"Now, his soul lies with no one but for the grace of God – in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen."

The preacher had finally stopped talking and was looking down from his pulpit towards the masses of empty seats in his temple.

"Are you his family?" he asked the two individuals sitting in front.

The man stood up, introducing himself. "I'm Ryouichi Arisato, his brother. And this is Kiku, my wife," the man said, pointing shyly to his wife, who remained apathetic. It was easy for her to take the same indifferent attitude as the rest of his family to the news of Kurama's death. But for Ryouichi, it broke his heart to see a man whom at one point he thought he could save from destruction now lying dead in a coffin.

"I see...I am Father Ajisawa, his close confidant and spiritual adviser...I was his friend and it is an honor to meet you two today."

The priest bowed deeply, prompting Ryouichi to do the same. Kiku only bowed slightly from her seat.

"Is that so? Kurama never mentioned you to me in his letters..."

"Oh, but he was a very spiritual man! But I do believe that I didn't play much of an important role in his life when it came to the worldly values between brothers. You see, he came to me for Salvation, and I guided him as best as I could..."

"Did you...did you know of the business he was involved in?" Ryouichi asked hesitantly.

The priest only nodded, looking at the casket and closing his eyes.

"But he was a good man, and I do not doubt he is in Heaven resting with our Lord..."

"Father...did he confide anything to you before his death?"

"Confide? Such as?" the priest knew that Ryouichi wanted information on his brother's death, but Kurama _was_ involved with some pretty serious business.

"In his last letter to me, he said he had taken up a job at the Nanjou Group. Father, you know how corrupt that organization is...I want to know how...how _this_ happened. The police told me that there was no evidence of foul play...that his heart just...just _exploded_ out of nowhere..."

"Yes, yes...well, you see, I am not a family member, so I could not get information on his cause of death from the police, but considering I _am_ a priest...your brother did confide to me about one thing before his death. It was in confession, and under any circumstances I would think nothing else of it, but knowing your brother's line of work..."

"What was it, Father?" Ryouichi asked, placing his hand on the priest's shoulder. The priest looked at Kiku before turning around to face a large wooden cross at the front of the church.

Closing his eyes, he lifted his hands up towards the cross and began divulging the last confession of Kurama Arisato.

ONE MONTH AGO

"_Father Ajisawa!" _

_A man had burst into the church, shivering and dripping wet from the rain. The man in the front of the church, dressed in all white, stared blankly at the man for a few moments before opening his mouth in awe._

"_Kurama Arisato! My child, how long has it been!?"_

"_Father! I have sinned, I must confess!" Kurama shouted. There was a tone of no-nonsense in his voice before Father Ajisawa motioned over towards the confessional near the entrance. Kurama waited there for Father Ajisawa before entering, making the sign of the cross as he did so._

"_Forgive me Father for I have sinned."_

"_What are your sins my child?"_

"_..." There was a slight pause. It was uncomfortable for Kurama to be doing this, but he had to. He had never done a job for the Nanjou Group without confessing to Father Ajisawa beforehand, and he wasn't going to let this one stop him._

"_Murder."_

"_Are you aware of the seriousness of your crime?"_

"_Yes, Father."_

"_And you come here in earnest love for thy Father in Heaven to pay penance for your sins?"_

"_Yes, Father."_

"_Then the Lord thy God has forgiven you my child...but may I ask under what circumstances you committed this crime?"_

"_...money, Father..."_

"_My child, murder your Lord has forgiven you, but the sin of greed is an ever dark specter in your life...pray with me my child..."_

"Our Father, who art in Heaven..."

Ryouichi's eyes opened wide.

"Hallowed be thy name."

He felt his stomach lurch, but held himself together.

"Thy Kingdom come, Thy-"

"Father Ajisawa...my brother committed murder?" Ryouichi asked. Kurama had been a punk all his life and had been a thug for the Nanjou Group for quite some time now, but he never would have thought that Kurama would be capable of such a crime.

"No...I later learned that your brother murdered no one, and that he was providing 'legal' counsel to a man thinking of bringing down the Nanjou Group..."

_Bring down the Nanjou Group?_

"That's impossible."

"My child, I have committed a most serious offense against God by divulging the information of our meeting with you today. I cannot afford eternal damnation by committing the sin of lying to you now. I speak the truth: your brother killed no one, and he died in the office of a man who believes he can bring down the Nanjou Group."

"So, do you know who this man is?"

"_That_, I do not know. But I do know this, my child: whatever happened in that office must have kicked up quite a stir...you've seen the news, haven't you?"

"Yes...I've heard reports that Nanjou's been shuffling their leadership lately...within the past two weeks in fact."

"Your brother may have been a part of something even bigger than you may have believed..."

Kiku was still on her cell phone while a silence fell upon the two men. It only now dawned upon them the seriousness of Kurama's death.

"Could this mean-" Ryouichi was cut off in the middle of his sentence by Father Ajisawa.

"Let us not jump to conclusions...but if you want to find out exactly why your brother died, I believe that you should start off from where this began: find this man who is trying to destroy the Nanjou Group and have him explain himself...only then can we find out why your brother had to be robbed of his life in this world..."

"Father...thank you..."

"It is all ordained in the scripture, my child. Something tells me that your brother's death is going to have far deeper implications than just Nanjou...I can guarantee it."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Note that I am not Catholic so I have no idea how the ritual of confession goes. I did my research and did the best I could to make this scene as realistic as possible.


	5. August 11, 1990

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI

T H E

G E K K O U K A N

I N C I D E N T

AUGUST 11, 1990

"Mister Kirijo! Can you answer a few questions on the pending investigation on the death of the Nanjou representative in your office!?"

"Mister Kirijo! How do you plan to proceed with business negotiations with the new leadership of the Nanjou Group!?"

"Mister Kirijo..."

"Fucking reporters..." I muttered. My lawyer was escorting me to a taxi after we'd left the Iwatodai Municipal Courthouse. After Kurama Arisato was found dead in his office, the National Police Agency had somehow been tipped off minutes after B.B. left. The resulting inquiries eventually led to a god-damned indictment charge on murder yesterday. That didn't go down too well for my plans for a Kirijo Group...

My lawyer opened up the door to the awaiting cab, closing the door without getting inside as the taxi began to pull away.

"Hey, what gi-"

I was about to slam his fist on the window before a voice popped up from the driver's seat.

"Calm down mister Kirijo, all will be explained in time..." the voice said. He looked into the rear-view mirror to give the driver a piece of his mind. She was a woman with a business suit and sunglasses and she had tanned skin and white hair.

"What the...it's _you_...what the hell did you-"

"I said calm down mister Kirijo. How have you been keeping up, it has been over a month since I last saw you, ne?"

"Dammit, you're the sole reason I'm in this mess!"

"The sole reason you're in this mess is because I intervened and stopped him from killing you. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to be indicted on murder than be the one who was murdered any day."

The woman turned left onto a highway ramp. I said nothing.

"What do you want?"

"I want your complete cooperation in a little project of mine. Call it an investment opportunity, if you will."

"And why should I help_ you_?"

"Why not?"

"Why not? What the-? What the hell are you talking about 'why not?' You got me-"

"And I told you I saved your ass from that brainless thug. I also want a senior position in the Kirijo Group."

"And if I don't agree to this?"

"Then I won't bail you out of this mess."

"You blackmailing bitch...was this your plan all along?"

"No, actually. My plan was a lot simpler than this, but then you just _had_ to draw the ire of the Nanjou Group and get an assassin on your tail, so I had to intervene. Personally I would have preferred you to develop on your own, but on the bright side, if you cooperate now, we can finish my project by the end of the millennium."

"E – excuse me? What project?"

By this time I was veritably confused. The police and the Nanjou Group aside, I had too much shit on my plate to start worrying about anything crazy this woman might be plotting now.

"Tell me Junichi-san...are you a religious man? Do you believe in a soul?"

"No...No, I don't," I replied. It was true, my family, ancestors and descendants alike, had never been too religious. We lived for the moment, seized the day, and never once did we give a damn about the afterlife.

Maybe that's why I'm in this situation right now. Fucking karma.

"Well, when we get to my lab, you will."

"Eh-heh. And what's my soul supposed to look like? Is it a god damned angel or one of those devils with horns and a-"

"Don't get smarmy with me! And besides that, it's neither...oh yes will you be surprised..."

After that, I don't think we talked much. My memory is all blank from that point until we arrived at her lab, which was actually less of an actual research station and more of a converted shack built on top of an apartment building's roof. I followed her up there, not knowing what in the hell she would show me.

In hindsight, maybe I should've just thrown myself off the roof.

"Holy shit! W – w – what the hell is-"

"This is a shadow: the true self," she said calmly, pointing to a black...._thing_ inside of a clear glass container. The shack itself was very plain: nothing but corrugated tin and cardboard, and yet inside was an almighty fortress of computers surrounding several vials and massive glass containers. Their contents were all clearly visible from the outside, and sealed within a blue liquid was a slimey-looking black blob that squirmed and squeaked until I had to leave the shack to catch some air.

What kind of ungodly monsters were those things?

Bibi answered that for me soon enough.

"These are the innate spiritual powers of mankind, residual evidence from God's war against the Otherworld. They-"

"I don't give a damn _what_ they are! Just tell me why in the hell you have those things!" I panted, trying to catch my breath as I did so. My heart was pounding and I could feel my ears about to pop. The little black blob inside the glass was starting to claw at the glass, but Bibi didn't seem fazed at all. In fact, I'd bet she was used to this kind of thing – not that I would doubt that conclusion, mind you – but at the time, when I knew very little about Shadows and Bibi-san, well, you must understand it scared me quite a bit.

"How I came across these Shadows? Why, that's easy, my dear...I _control_ them."

"If you can control them, then you can _kill_ them!"

"Yes, I suppose you can kill a Shadow. I haven't tried, mind you, but theoretically, it is possible. They come out only during a certain time in which only the truly blessed are allowed to witness them and interact with them. I just happened to gain the power to accessing their time by pure chance."

"Nothing happens by chance in this world, you and I both know that, especially after the fiasco with that Arisato guy. How the hell did you come across that thing!?"

"Well," she said, rubbing the back of her head with her free hand and looking up at the sky. "If I had to guess, it would be because of the ParaPols..."

"Para-what?"

"Paranormal Police. Believe it or not, Mister Kirijo, there are things that go bump in the night. Most people are not aware that several thousand individuals work in organizations such as the Vatican to rid the world of the residual evil left behind by God's little war."

"I still don't see how that ties in with _that_," I said, pointing my finger at the god-forsaken blob on the other side of the glass. I swear the bloody thing was _staring_ at me.

"Well, my family has been in the ParaPol business for generations. It just so happens that I was assigned the task of collecting and analyzing documents and artifacts for their spiritual value. That was when I received the 'potential', when I woke up in the middle of the night to find the ground covered with blood and these little devils roaming around the ground. I don't know specifically which artifact I accessed that caused this transformation, but it happened about three years ago, just a few weeks before I met you at the convention center, Mister Kirijo."

"_Great_. That is absolutely wonderful. Now why do you want me to fund this Satanic project of yours?"

"I can see your future, Mister Kirijo. It is not a matter of choice. Your bloodline and current circumstances have put you in a unique position to decide the fate of this Earth, this dimension, and even this universe...now the only question remains, will you rise to the challenge now, or prolong the cycle of the Arcanum for another thousand years?"

I don't think I have to tell you what my answer to that question was.


End file.
